Why Calorie Counters are Confused

A few years ago I believed it myself. Losing weight was exclusively about “consuming less calories than you expend”. The mantra was: “eat less, run more”.

Fat people’s problems – I believed – came from them eating more calories than they expended. They were gluttonous and slothful; they lacked strength of character, which meant that thin people like me had such strength of character. This was uplifting news to me, if a bit prejudiced.

This way of looking at things seemed so obvious and simple. Today however, more and more people realizing how inane it is. Soon we’ll look back and laugh at the silliness.

The mistake

The following explanation may be difficult to understand if you’ve been brainwashed with the “calorie in, calorie out” logic. It takes time to digest the concept (it did for me, too).

Here’s what’s wrong with calorie obsession: It’s absolutely meaningsless. It may seem logical and smart, but in fact it says naught, zip and nothing.

A typical example: This sounds plausible, sure. But what does it really tell us? The fact that an excess of calories will cause weight gain is obvious. Really, it’s obvious to the point of the two things actually being one and the same. An excess of calories is simply the same thing as weight gain. When you realise this, you realise how the statement loses all substance:

This is plainly meaningless. It may be true, sure, but it’s devoid of any valuable information. It doesn’t say anything about the real causes of obesity.

Other generic statements from calorie fundamentalists include: As a calorie deficit is equivalent to weight loss, we can expose this flawed proposition as well: Again: a statement so obvious it becomes useless.

Comedy or tragedy?

This brainwashing would have been comical, had it not been for the tragic consequences. When a person with weight issues seeks the professional help of calorie experts today, they often end up hearing the following:

“Now now. There are many ideas about diets, fad diets and other things, but it’s really very simple. There is only one way. Forget everything else – there are no shortcuts. It doesn’t matter what you eat. Let me tell you: the only thing you need to focus on if you want to be thinner… Is to lose weight.”

Finally

Here’s what it would look like if people solved their maths problems by applying the same thought patterns as calorie believers do:

A little too simple, you’ll surely agree! This is as gross a simplification as believing that obesity simply results from excess calories.

Although many people are now realizing that the calorie paradigm being fed to us is meaningless, there’s still a long way to go. The believers are so convinced that they can’t see how redundant the reasoning is. The problem is they’re still brainwashed.

65 Comments

Top Comment

Atkins is "a" low-carb diet, but not the one I was following. Most people following Atkins are still "fat fearing", and replace the carbs with protein. In the long run, that won't work. You should aim for one gram of protein per kilogram of lean muscle mass (about 1 gram per 2 pounds of body weight will be close enough). And also aim for no more than 50g of carbs in a day, although if you spread it out a bit, 75 is ok (just not all at once). Everything else should be *enough* healthy fats to avoid being hungry, so you're not tempted to cheat. Avoid oxidized omega 6, found in the seed oils (canola, soy, corn), and of course trans fat. Everything else is fair game. Avoid "lean" cuts of meat, and anything that has "reduced fat" or "diet" or "low fat" on the label.

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Another experience was when living with the Inuit in Northern Canada: although they now "enjoy" many of our Western Industrialised Foods, many of those where I stayed still also "live off the land"... seals, arctic char, caribou, ptarmigan, even polar bears on occasion!

Before any extended trip out in the cold of winter, they would be sure to eat their own "country food" as they called it, rather than the store-bought stuff... as they had found it was only this country food which kept them warm and full of energy when out in frigid temperatures.

I might also add from my (highly unscientific but nonetheless) careful viewing of documentaries where teams are ascending Mount Everest: that while the "Europeans" (who of course take all the glory for the ascent) are "carb loading" on mar$ bars and pasta, the Sherpas -- who do all the heavy lifting between the various camps -- prefer to eat yak-meat fried in butter

Well my experience has been quite different than yours. I have always been physically active, but needed to lose some weight in order to perform better in my athletic endeavours. The problem for me has always been binge eating whenever I exercise. So I went very low carb for a while. I suddenly had better control over my eating and lost a good amount of weight. But let me tell you this had ZERO effect on my energy levels and ZERO effect on my overall daily calorie demands. In other words it appeared the only difference VLC made is that I sponteanously reduced my calorie intake. However after a while I started eating more again and gain a few pounds back. That's when I abanded the carb-insulin hypothesis. Instead I think my body's long-term homeostatic system kicked in and adapted to this change in diet, and ultimately wanted to drive me back up to my set point.

Anyways my belief is that the people who have more success on LC diets are those who have more drastically changed their lifestyle. If you went from obese, sedentary, and eating pure junk to exercising moderately with a LC diet, you are going to feel much better/different than someone like me who was already physically active and only modestly overweight.

What Atkins now says is that while most people are sufficiently satisfied on the high fat diet so as to spontaneously eat fewer calories than they need, many do eat enough fat calories to push them over their needs. I am one of those people who finds it easy to eat more calories than I need in an unrestricted setting.

I suggest you read The Anderson Method by William Anderson, which is based on portion control and developing effective strategies rather than diet or exercise.

@Doc Thank you in comment 47 for finally clarifying what you mean, because you had me really confused. I get the argument for argument's sake and see your point about being sold ideas that are meaningless, and changing the world one thought process at a time; however, at the end of the day the bottom line (and we Yanks Love the bottom line) is eat fewer calories than you burn if you want to lose weight.

I have excellent reading comprehension and critical thinking skills, yet I had to scour this whole site looking for that simple statement.

Good. Glad that's settled. I think it would be helpful to put that statement at the top of the article. Call it a caveat if you want, but the argument tends to obfuscate that which you later state is obvious and I don't think that's your goal. And perhaps highlight that it's not being aware of how many calories one consumes that is the problem, but that to rely on numbers rather than natural signals is. Otherwise I'm right there with you on all other points.

I thank you kindly for generously bringing all of your research to us. It has already helped me tremendously. Keep up the good work!

The big problem.. I asume, is to tell people that LCHF is no new magic diet.. and that there is no other eighter!

Its this new low fat, low calorie, dogma that is totaly wrong.. it confuse people.. when healt and normal weight is more about eating whole real home cocked food.. frome the best groceries one can bye!

Hey Buzz..eat more man..this is hell of low calories you eat for 300lbs weight! Also try to employ one night refeed (carbs) a week...why the heck no one is considering leptin as a problem in his situation?! Dietdoctor anything to say about leptin resistance?!

I've been stuck on a plateau / slow loss for 2.5 months (after a 12kg loss), I was eating around 2-2500kcal per day and have since reduced my fat intake to try and kickstart the process. My calorie intake has dropped substantially (1200-1500) but I still appear to be stuck? My bmr is supposedly 2100kcal, where am I going wrong?

I think I'm getting to the stage where things are slowing down to a comfortable natural weight, I'd like to get beyond this and get lean :-). I don't deliberately count calories but when tracking carbs, fat and protein the calorie info is a given (I use myfitnesspal). I have recently started IF and suddenly another Kg melted away; BMI 26(med-large build from lifting weights in my youth) @ 78kg, I'd like to get to 70kg but it feels like it may take much, much longer than I'd hoped. Have had days at 1100kcal and still not felt hunger, but when logged on an app I get warnings telling me to eat more! Hopefully IF will get me there.